a jew who is hated by jews

[Glides]

title's hyperbolic, i don't really give a shit.

hello, my name is glides, and i am now 29 years old. i've been posting in this forum since i was 17.

six years ago, i made the massively stupid mistake of trying to re-engage in judaism after having spent years away from it. i was raised orthodox and boy did they not like me! i did everything wrong, did nothing right. and was continually judged for it. i reasoned, stupidly at the time, that that was okay, because those are a bunch of rightwing nutjobs and they're a tiny little wacko fringe anyway, so surely the mainstream ones are nicer.

i mean, sure, people are overall nice, but the one thing they don't want to do is include me in community. the queer ones don't want me. the trans ones don't want me. the disabled ones don't want me. none of them want me around. i have plenty of jewish friends, and outside of a religious context, we get along fine. but the second i try to enter any religious space, the overwhelming response is that i am intruding, that i am not good enough, that whatever i am is wrong, i might as well be a christian instead (and i hate christians far too much to ever be one of them, given that i was bullied and beaten by them for so long. i'll never let go of that grudge. but that's a story for a not now time).

i already feel this from my family, where the overwhelming sentiment of "not good enough" has been a tidal wave ever since i was born. so to get this from the most supposedly progressive, radical transgressive ones hurts far worse than this. because nobody can explain why they don't want me there or what i'm doing so wrong. it's unexplainable. every attempt has failed. and i've only tried to be more and more observant to compensate.

now granted i'm not gonna respond by eating pork for every meal, but my days of observance are over. i am clearly not wanted by my own people. i can't stop being a jew, but i sure as fuck can stop making myself do shit nobody cares about. no more torah portions, no more praying, no more holidays, no more bullshit, full cold turkey, and the last time i will ever willingly engage in any kind of jewish space is my cousin's bat mitzvah in may. that'll be the last time while i'm alive whether anyone realizes it or not. i will be a nothing.

it's wild because this is the only type of space where this has consistently happened. in queer spaces: never happens. in disabled spaces: never happens. in any other segment of myself, this never ever fucking happens. it's never this clique-y, i'm never scrutinized, i'm never judged. is it antisemitic to say your own people hate you? if anything, they're antisemitic for all hating me on the spot like this.

i don't give a fuck anymore. i'll never be enough, so why even try to be observant? it's not like they're going to notice, anyway. it's not like my family thinks i'm anything more than a piece of dirt that can talk, anyway. it's ironic that the only people who have ever been kind to me in community spaces have been the other nothings, and nobody else.